Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/103

 mented Ada. "I thought your teeth looked real good when I met you at the ball."

"It's a wisdom tooth," said May. "I'm just cuttin' it. Onct I get it through I'll 'ave done wiv worryin'."

"Goodness, I used to have toothache and earache, too, but since I'm married I never have so much as an ache. Happiness is a great beautifier, they say." She hunched her shoulders, giving a mischievous smile to Albert's image that rose between them.

May's eyes above the bandage were not to be fathomed. "Yes," she agreed. "That's wot's swelled me fyce. It's just puffed out wiv 'appiness."

"Lord," said Ada brutally. "What have you got to be happy about? Albert always speaks as though you was a mopey little thing."

May rolled her head on the back of the chair. "I am," she said. "I like to be mopey. That's the w'y I'm made."

Ada regarded her doubtfully. She thought she would change the subject. "How is it you and Albert are related? I've never reely understood."

"Our fathers were brothers. Twin brothers."

Ada pounced. "Why isn't your name Masters, then, same as Albert's?"

May rocked, cause I was adopted by a rich gentleman, nime of Phillips, when I was a little nipper."

Ada mocked. "Rich gentleman! I like that. Where's he gone to? Leavin' you to work in a hotel?"

"Well, yer see, he died," said May softly, "and me hated guardian wanted to marry me, when I was seventeen, so, one dark night, at midnight, I crept down the stairs of the mansion in Mayfair, an' out into the world to seek distraction. The fancy took me lately that I'd like to see Cousin Albert. Dear me, I'd 'ardly 'ave knowed 'im in those workingman's clothes. 'E used to